December 2013

GSMArena smartphone shopping guide

€400-€500

Now we're officially in flagship territory, even though this isn't the top tier category. Still, you need to have a good reason to go above €500 as these devices will fulfill almost anyone's needs with cutting-edge features from this year.

The HTC One is one of the most beautiful Android phones at the moment (if not the most, depending on who you ask). It has a great 4.7" 1080p screen and a 4MP UltraPixel camera with optical image stabilization. Throw in the fast Snapdragon 600 chipset, stereo speakers on the front and a pure Android option like the Galaxy S4 and you have a strong contender.

It will certainly draw people who dislike the plastic build of most of Samsung's phones along with audio buffs (the One has great audio hardware).

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra phablet is a stunner - a huge 6.4" 1080p screen and a 6.5mm thin glass and metal body with an IP58 water-resistance rating to boot. It has a powerful Snapdragon 800 chipset and as of recently a Google Play Edition (you don't have to buy one, the ROM should soon be available for all Z Ultra owners with some tech skills to flash).

This the Xperia Z Ultra is probably too big to carry around unless you have a bag of some kind, but it's one of the most powerful phablets around and the only one that wouldn't mind a trip to the pool. We didn't recommend it last time but it's the device that has had the biggest price drop since the previous installment of our shopping guide, a whopping €100 in a month.

Actually, the Xperia Z family experienced the biggest price drops in the two months separating our guides. The Sony Xperia Z1 dropped a fair amount too and is no longer in the €500+ category. The Z1 is a revamped Xperia Z. The most impressive upgrade is the relatively big 1/2.3" sensor with 20.7MP resolution. That's point-and-shoot camera territory (including the Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom) but it fits in a slender 8.5mm body.

The body is once again a triumph of glass-and-aluminum design and sports the latest Snapdragon 800 chipset with an even higher water-proofing rating than the Xperia Z. Then there's the big 3,000mAh battery and expandable storage - difficult to pull off on a thin, water-resistant phone but Sony did it. It's a bit large for a 5" phone though.

The still camera produces impressive shots - check out our 6-way camera shootout - and has some interesting proprietary camera features (how about streaming video to Facebook live?).

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the third iteration of the highly successful phablet series with an S Pen stylus. Now that it went in the sub-€500 category, it's the phablet to get. It has a beautiful 5.7" 1080p Super AMOLED screen and is powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset, both of which make the split screen multitasking a real treat.

The S Pen also enables other multitasking options - it makes note taking and searching that much easier, and packs even more proprietary features than the Galaxy S4.

The 13MP camera did okay for stills and is absolutely amazing for video - it can record stunning 2160p video and excellent 1080p @ 60fps clips (better than the LG G2). For video, it has digital zoom that rivals the Lumia 1020s optical zoom.

The Galaxy Note 3 breaks away from Samsung's traditional plastic design - it's still plastic, but the faux-leather back is very convincing and really classes up the place. By the way, the device's size hasn't changed since the Note 2, despite the increase in screen diagonal.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is targeted at business people (who will appreciate KNOX enterprise security) and power users who will love the huge mountain of features. If we had to go over them all, we'd have to copy and paste the review here.

Just make sure you're getting the N9005 version with Snapdragon 800 CPU - the N9000 with Exynos 5 lacks LTE and 2160p video capture.